Jung’s Archetypes - Women Writers

36 Pages·2014·3.64 MB·English

by  Kim Wells

Jung’s
Archetypes
Carl Jung
a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist
who founded analytical psychology. A
contemporary of Freud. Jung proposed and
developed the concepts of extraversion and
introversion; archetypes, and the collective
unconscious. His work has been influential
in psychiatry and in the study of religion,
philosophy, archeology, anthropology,
literature, and related fields.
The central concept of analytical
psychology is individuation.
Jung created some of the best known
psychological concepts, including the
archetype, the collective unconscious, the
complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular
psychometric instrument, has been
developed from Jung's theory of
psychological types.
Carl Jung believed that the events of nature
were not simply put into fairytales and myths as
a way of explaining them physically. Rather, the
outer world was used to make sense of the
inner.

Archetypes have been expressed as myths
and fairytales, and at a personal level in
dreams and visions. In mythology they are
called 'motifs',

Humans have a religious instinct, Jung
believed, whether it is a belief in God or in
some secular faith like communism or atheism.
“No one can escape the prejudice of being
human” he observed.
From: http://www.butler-bowdon.com/carl-jung-archetypes-collective-unconcious
Individuation
'Individuation' is Jung's term for the

point when a person is finally able to
integrate the opposites within them --
their conscious and unconscious
minds. Individuation simply means to
become what you always were in
potentia, to fulfil your unique promise.

Jung considered individuation to be

the central process of human
development.
From: http://www.butler-bowdon.com/carl-jung-archetypes-collective-unconcious
Collective Unconscious
Everyone has their own
unique Personal
Unconscious made up of
suppressed and forgotten
memories, traumas, etc.

The Collective Unconscious
is universal.
It predates the individual.

It is the repository of all the

religious, spiritual, and
mythological symbols and
experiences.
Humans are sort of “hard

wired” to find these patterns
and symbols resonant. The
reading assignment called this
“innate projections” that
children accept without
question.
The Collective Unconscious’ primary structures Jung
called “Archetypes”

Jung stated that these archetypes were the “conceptual
matrixes or patterns behind all our religious and
mythological concepts, and indeed, our thinking processes
in general.”
Archetypes
If this concept is correct, if there
are archetypal ideas that are
“wired into” us, it becomes
easier to explain why there are
so many similarities between
stories over time.

But what are these archetypes?

How do they manifest
themselves?
Collective Unconscious
Characters
Hero, scapegoat, outcast, devil, woman,

star-crossed lovers
Situations
Quest, task, initiation, journey, fall,

death/rebirth
Symbols/associations
Light-darkness, water-desert, heaven-hell


I’ll describe each in turn on the following
slides
Three types of archetypes
The Hero
Joseph Campbell has argued

that this archetype is so well
defined that the life of the
protagonist can be clearly
divided into a series of well-
marked adventures, which
strongly suggest a ritualistic
pattern.
Characters who exemplify this

archetype to a greater or lesser
extent are Oedipus, Theseus,
Romulus, Perseus, Jason,
Dionysos, Joseph, Moses,
Elijah, Jesus Christ, Siegfried,
Arthur, Robin Hood, …
Character Archetypes
The Hero
Character Archetypes:
Traditionally the

protagonist of a story
Often his/her past is a

mystery
The champion,

king/queen, leader or
savior of many
Endures pain and

sorrow that all lead to a
greater good